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CETA Signed Off As Wallonia Folds Under Pressure (freezenet.ca)
Dangerous_Minds writes: The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) has been signed off. The government of Wallonia appeared to be holding off on the agreement, but has since folded under the pressure. Two days after Wallonia agreed to the trade deal, countries signed off on the agreement. The agreement contains provisions surrounding a three strikes law, a global DMCA, site blocking, and the hugely controversial ISDS provisions to name a few. The deal still needs to be ratified for these laws to take effect.
ISDS = workers rights gone as big corps can say they are bad for profits.
Wallonia is a real place, it's a region of Belgium, which is a country in Europe.
It's a place that will magically exist on that distant day when someone invents a way for you to look things up you've never heard of - let's call it an "information-seeking motor" - and teaches you to use it.
When companies can sue a country because polluting can yield bigger profits but the government opposes it, there's something really wrong with the world.
Don't forget the $50 Billion in job losses to offset the $25 B in gains. We tried this crap with NAFTA etc and it only benefits the rich.
We use 'signed off' to mean 'approved' in America too, so......
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
https://stop-ttip.org/what-is-...
Investors will be able to sue states.
The so-called Investor-State-Dispute-Settlement (ISDS) – even in it’s new disguise as the EU’s “Investment Court System” (ICS) model – will grant foreign investors (i.e. Canadian and US companies) the right to sue European states if they believe that laws or measures of the EU or any member state have damaged their investments and reduced their expected profit. This will also affect laws and measures enacted in the interest of the common good, such as environmental and consumer protection.
Read up on Investor State Tribunals in CETA here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Basically it allows corporations to sue states in arbitrary "tribunals" if a state violates its Non Discriminatory Treatment obligations (CETA, section 3, p 156 f) or because of a violation of the guaranteed investment protection.
So corporations can claim that environmental protection laws are arbitrary and give unfair advantages to domestic companies that comply with those laws, while penalizing foreign companies that do not comply.
The fear is that corporations will claim, "You are only enacting those environmental, worker protection, and social justice laws to penalize us, it's just code for 'protect local business.'" This is a realistic fear because it has happened before.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
And it's a hyped up fear. This sort of tribunal exists in NAFTA and has never lead to this result. Not only that but the agreement that got Belgium onboard heavily modifies this tribunal, and corporate interests will no longer be able to name anyone to these tribunals. The tribunals will be picked from a fixed body of experts chosen by the EU and Canada and called in deal with disputes on a rotating basis.
Unless you think nations who are signatories to treaties can just wantonly abrogate the obligations they agreed to and the affected party should have no right to seek a hearing. If that's the case, then just come out and say you reject any agreements between nation states of any kind, and believe treaties, big or small, are absolute wrongs.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
CETA includes exactly the same ISDS, as the summary states. Now before you judge others' reading skills...
This kind of tribunals have been and will be used this way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Morris_v._Uruguay
Don't forget the $50 Billion in job losses to offset the $25 B in gains. We tried this crap with NAFTA etc and it only benefits the rich.
People who actually have studied this and know something about it disagree with you.
I don't blame you, it is an easy mistake to make because benefits are diffuse while costs are concentrated and easy to identify, especially due to the inadequacy (in the USA) of the trade-adjustment assistance program.
And wtf is wallonia..?
It's the post-independence name of South Elbonia.
From your own link:
"Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, says anxiety over trade deals has grown because wages haven’t kept pace with labor productivity while income inequality has risen. To some extent, he says, trade deals have hastened the pace of these changes".
The fact that "most estimates conclude that the deal had a modest but positive impact on U.S. GDP of less than 0.5 percent" (from your link) is largely irrelevant when most people do not get to see the benefits. Indeed, median American income has been shrinking since the late 1990s (when adjusted for inflation) even while the mean has increased.
Don't get me wrong. I'm one of the people who has done well out of the whole arrangement. But I totally appreciate others have not and are angry about it.
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
You miss the point, I guess.
The opposition to the tribunals exists because it means any and all laws that are passed in the future will have to be inspected from a "possible impact on foreign trade" perspective. Member states can't pass an environmental protection law any more to protect the environment, it needs to be written so that it doesn't harm trade. They can't pass a workplace safety law anymore just to safe workers health and life, it has to be written so that it doesn't harm trade. Everything becomes a matter of international trade.
We already see the effect of this focus on the economy as the only god. In Germany, Schaeuble, the minister of finances, is without a doubt the most powerful minister and his opinion is asked and reported in the media on everything. Every law about work, immigration, foreign policy, health, education, literally everything. They made a law some years ago that forces the government to keep a balanced budget, and Schaeuble's "sorry, we don't have the money for this, and it would break the budget" can stop any law being discussed, no matter the subject.
The tribunals lead to self-censorship. Laws will be written so that they don't damage corporate interests. You will probably be proven right that the tribunals are actually called on very little - because their main effect is not in the trial, but in the chilling effect it causes.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Globalization is neither good nor bad, but CETA is a bad deal. Especially when we want to battle resource limitations and climate change. A key problem with CETA is the so called protection for investors, which sounds like we do not have a proper legal system in Canada and the EU. CETA has also a system which allows to modify the treaty later without parliamental control. So in short it is undemocratic and I want to keep my democracy.
It's not a separate country. It's a region of Belgium and Belgium has a very complicated federal system. In many cases, Belgium can only sign contracts, if all regions agree to said contract.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Actually, it is a place filled with waffling Belgians.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!